The Emoji Movie Casts Patrick Stewart As Voice Of The Poop Icon

Of all the years of diligence, respect, awards and adulation heaped upon 76-year old Patrick Stewart OBE... The man that gave the world Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Charles Professor X Xavier, is now a talking pile of poop. Taking part in the upcoming animation feature The Emoji Movie to debut this August, the Englishman is clearly not taking himself too seriously on his follow up from Logan.

Directed by Tony Leondis, the movie will focus on one emoji that embarks on a journey inside a phone. And, while that premise is sketchy at best, the marketing alone from Sony and Columbia Pictures will ensure the 3D production earns big at the box office. Stewart's recent performance on the television series Blunt Talk as well as his work on American Dad illustrates that he has a wicked sense of humor. Emoji Movie will offer him the chance to do likewise.

Other Big Names Jump Aboard Cast

Sisters star Maya Rudolph has jumped aboard to play the smiley emoji Smiler, linking up with the likes of James Corden as High Five, T.J. Miller as Gene the outsider, Ilana Glazer as Jailbreak, Steve Wright as Mel Meh, Jennifer Coolidge as Mary Meh and Rob Riggle as the ice cream emoji. The project was brought about via producer Michelle Raimo Kouyate with the screenplay co-written between the director and Eric Siegel.

This will hopefully be lucky number 13 for Sony Pictures, making their first motion picture courtesy of 2006's Open Season with Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher. Following this with other animation titles including Surf's Up, The Smurfs and Hotel Transylvania, Sony returns at the box office have been the envy of other competing studios as they debut Smurfs: The Lost Village on April 4 prior to this experiment.

Reaction Less Than Receptive For This Idea

Usually any trailer for an upcoming motion picture has a decent reception, showing the best bits or teasing for something exciting to come. But for the opening reaction to Sony's The Emoji Movie, YouTube gave an outline to suggest that all is not well with the audience. YouTube users responded to the first teaser with 57,900 thumbs down compared to just 6,800 thumbs up from New Years Day.

Arguing in some circles that Hollywood had officially run out of ideas, or laughing over the idea that it could actually be a good movie, the promotion from the starting gate appears to be off to a shaky start. The true test will come when the flick opens on August. Yet it seems as though the studio might have gone one idea too far with this venture.